


Every Day The Same

by orphan_account



Category: Arthurian Mythology & Adaptations - All Media Types, Merlin (TV)
Genre: Backstory, Gen, Siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-16
Updated: 2012-12-16
Packaged: 2017-11-21 06:46:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/594679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written as part of the FarewellFicFest on Tumblr, prompt ‘Every Day The Same’. </p><p>Character study: Elyan.</p><p>Elyan is frustrated with the life that fate seems to have planned out for him, and it is not until he gets into a fight with a new opponent that he is set free.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Every Day The Same

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Merlin is not mine.

*_*_*_*_*

The smell of ash and the ringing of metal were a part of Elyan’s soul. He felt as though he’d been born into the raging heat of the forge and that his blood had never cooled down. But although it was a part of his very self, Elyan did not desire the life that had been given to him by his birth.

 

From an early age his father had schooled him in the art of creating weapons and metal instruments, and as Elyan had grown stronger, so his education advanced. He was a fine blacksmith – his attention to detail and pursuit of perfection rendered his work better than it had any right to be for his fifteen years. He was proud, but given the choice preferred to wield a sword than forge one.

 

Every day was the same. He woke before dawn, dressed in his street clothes and carefully pulled his own sword – fashioned by himself, for himself – from under the bed and crept out of the door. Guinevere, at seventeen, sometimes rose at this hour to be on time for her maidservant job, and would shake her head when she saw him. She seemed to do a lot of that these days, ever since he had developed a talent for stumbling into street fights with the other young men of the Lower Town.

 

He would spend an hour or more slashing and hacking at the makeshift training dummy that was usually used by customers to test weapons, much to his father’s exasperation as his exertions meant that weekly repairs were necessary. But Elyan would not relent. Every morning, he imagined deadly foes or assassins before him, and after cutting them down would pause, sweating and panting as the town around him slowly woke.

 

He would bathe before breaking his fast with his father, and then both would begin the day’s work in the forge.  They would not finish until sundown, at which point they’d return, seeing Guinevere only for supper and exchanging the same stories every evening about the day’s events.

 

Elyan knew he’d been born into heat. But the forge was smouldering coals imprisoned by the furnace door and glowing metal to be tempered; he wanted wildfire.  
  


*_*_*_*_*

 

It wasn’t until the morning of Yule, just weeks before Elyan’s sixteenth birthday that everything changed.

 

He was undertaking his usual regime, the cold, silent morning disturbed only by his grunts and the sound of steel slicing through fabric. He hadn’t been able to sleep and was up much earlier than usual – it was only just beginning to get lighter. He didn’t hear the footsteps, and it was only when he heard someone clearing their throat behind him that he spun around to face a bemused looking Prince Arthur.

 

“My Lord,” he inclined his head respectfully, not bothering to hide his irritation at the intrusion too carefully.

 

“Not interrupting am I?” Arthur drawled with an unmistakeable patronising edge to his tone.

 

“Not at all,” Elyan replied in a voice that said otherwise.

 

Arthur quirked an eyebrow. He was in street clothes, out of his usual armour but still carrying a sword at his hip. He fingered the hilt, and Elyan realised that he was itching for a challenge.

 

“Funny,” the prince continued, “To see the blacksmith’s boy playing at being a knight.”

 

“I’m not _playing_ ,” Elyan’s temper flared “I’m---“

 

“Practising?” Arthur laughed cruelly “You’re a commoner, you can’t be a knight… A guard maybe, if you’re lucky, but let’s face it, you’ll never be anything more than a simple blacksmi—“

 

His taunting was cut short, quite literally as Elyan swung at him furiously with his sword. It was a wide cut, clearly meant only to intimidate and not inflict harm, but nonetheless Arthur dodged deftly and drew his own weapon. The two boys began to circle one another.

 

“Could have you executed for that. It’s treason to try and kill royalty.”

 

“If you really think that would have got you you’re more of a coward than we’ve all been led to believe!” Elyan shot back, and Arthur’s face finally coloured angrily.

 

The prince lunged forward and slashed at Elyan, this time to wound. They were evenly matched – no armour, good weapons, almost equal strength. For long minutes Elyan and Arthur furiously swung at one another, parrying and grunting and letting out their aggression. Finally faced with an opponent, Elyan found himself fighting with all the frustration and resentment he carried, each thrust of his sword propelled by the promise of yet another day of the same tedious life. He could not account for Arthur’s ferocity; what did a prince have to be bitter about?

 

“ _Elyan!_ ”

 

He faltered at Guinevere’s shriek, and did not block Arthur’s swing correctly; the prince’s sword slashed at his bicep and a searing pain shot through his arm and he cried out, clutching at the wound with eyes shut tight. There was suddenly a body close to his, a hand on his other shoulder as he sank to his knees.

 

“Oh god, I’m sorry, I’m sorry… Here…”

 

To his surprise, Elyan opened his eyes to find the prince tearing at the bottom of his linen shirt and using the fabric to bind his arm, looking strangely contrite at having actually wounded him.

 

“Elyan, are you alright?” Guinevere asked, the anger still not quite gone from her voice, but crouching on his other side all the same. He nodded, clenching his jaw; he didn’t trust himself to speak for fear of his voice breaking. She held his hand as Arthur bound the gash, his mouth set in a hard line.

 

“That should do it… Get Gaius to look at it today, just in case,” Arthur tied off the makeshift bandage before extending a hand to help Elyan up. Once on his feet, Elyan fixed the prince with a suspicious glare.

 

“Why would you help me?”

 

Arthur shrugged, assuming an indifferent air.

 

“Knight’s honour. Besides, can’t have it going around that I’m cutting up the peasantry,”

 

Elyan felt his anger bubble again.

 

“Watch who you’re calling--!”

 

“Elyan,” Guinevere said warningly, before turning to Arthur “Sire, why are you out this early? You’ll be missed, especially this morning…”

 

“Couldn’t sleep,” he mumbled, and his face suddenly became closed “I was on my way home when… Never mind. I’m going.”

 

With that he made to leave, but he didn’t get more than two houses away before Guinevere called out once more, this time more familiar.

 

“Arthur!”

 

He turned apprehensively, as though he thought she might berate him for wounding her brother.

 

“Happy birthday.”

 

He gave a half smile and inclined his head towards her, then left quickly. Elyan breathed a sigh of relief before a sharp pain in the side of his head materialised in the form of Guinevere grabbing him by the ear.

 

“Ow! Ow! Owwwwww, Gwen! Stop it that—“

 

“Hurts? Good! What do you think you were doing? He’s the _prince_ , Elyan, what if you’d actually hurt him?”

 

“But I didn’t,”

 

She left go of his ear, and covered her face with her hands in exasperation. She spoke from behind them.

 

“You are a magnet for trouble, Elyan. Why can’t you just…”

 

“What? Settle down? Accept that I have to lose? I’m not going to do that, Gwen.”

 

She finally looked at him again, this time with a weary expression. He felt a stab of guilt – since he was born, she had been the lady of the house, sister and mother to Elyan both. It was a great responsibility for a young girl, and day after day, he took her for granted.

 

“I thought you’d take my side…” he mumbled, looking at his feet.

 

“Oh, Elyan, I didn’t make you apologise, did I?” she replied, tone a little more gentle “But I can’t go around telling off the crown prince. It doesn’t work like that.”

 

“Maybe it should.”

 

She looked resigned.

 

“Elyan, today is Arthur’s eighteenth birthday. That also means that it’s the anniversary of his mother’s death. Morgana says it’s difficult for him, plus the obligations of being a prince… He can’t escape it, even for a moment. His whole life has been planned out since before he was born. It doesn’t excuse him, but can you understand why he’s such a bully?”

 

Elyan nodded, and Guinevere touched his cheek before hurrying up the road to the castle.

 

Having a birthday that was also cause for commiseration; this much Elyan had in common with the prince it seemed. But unlike Arthur, he realised, he was not bound to his future by the expectations of a kingdom. He glanced at the sword in his hand.

 

He left the next day, not knowing where he was going or when he’d be back. He couldn’t stay knowing that if he did, nothing would ever change. Little did he know that when he returned, nothing would be the same.


End file.
